Over the last month I’ve been working day and night, and having some fun in a few places as well.
From October 1st to October 10th was the GBJAM5, the games jam where the theme is the original gameboy. While the aim is to make a game that could play on an original gameboy, the only rules that matter is the resoluton being 160 x 144 pixels and only using 4 colour graphics. I’ve been taking part since the first one back in 2013, and I’ve only missed GBJAM2. It’s a jam I love because it’s small, I love the restriction of the game’s size and graphics, plus growing up with a Gameboy Color means I have a bit of nostalgia for the system.
Despite the games jam lasting 10 days, I was going to spend the weekend in Dublin so I could spend some time with my sister, who’s been travelling around Africa for a few months. I decided to work on a really simple game idea, a block moving from start to finish, avoiding some obstacles on the way. The idea ended up being so simple it took me the first day to get basic graphics moving on the screen, some obstacles and a palette swapping system. I was able to use the rest of the time updating the graphics, adding a few more objects like locks, keys and bouncepads, as well as a transitional effect and some other screens to make the game feel complete and authentic.
The end result was MonoCube, an action puzzle game where all you have to do is get to the end. During the development process I got a surprising amount of attention, and even after submitting the game early I got several comments, the game ended up getting 7th place in gameplay! You can check out the game here.
On November 8th, I will be speaking at the Digital Technology Conference at Stoke Campus, Staffordshire University. My talk will be about Indie Game Development and the Steam Greenlight process, on what I did to get Gemstone Keeper greenlit and offering my advice. This will be the first time I’ve gone to the Stoke campus as a Graduate, and I look forward to seeing what the campus is like since the games and computing departments all moved from Stafford earlier in the year.
Now I’m going to return to Gemstone Keeper, I’ve got one planned boss remaining to work on, and I’m also focusing some time on the audio (both music and sound effects). In the meantime, I’ve updated the game’s titlescreen, as I felt the original could have had a more authentic layout, as well as some improved scrolling for the background.
We Are Surrounded
I would first like to start this post by talking about Ralph Baer, wildly known as the father of video games who passed away on December 6th. Since 1966 he always had the idea of games that can be displayed on television screens, and developed what he calls “the brown box” which had rotary controls and played a simple tennis game with two panels and a square ball. This patented idea eventually got picked up by TV manufacturer Magnavox and became the Odyssey, wildly considered the first video games console. Along with essentially founding computer and video games as we know it today, he also invented the classic electronic game Simon (and its sequel Super Simon) and carried on developing and tinkering with electronic prototypes, giving him 150 patents to his name.
GAMEPOPPER 